We don't want to strike: teachers' union

Peterborough This Week

To the editor:
We want to be clear with every concerned citizen in this region. Teachers do not want to be on strike.
Teachers do not want to withdraw voluntary extracurricular activities. Teachers want to teach, and to enjoy every facet of being an educator in publicly-funded Ontario schools.
However, teachers also want and must be able to exercise their democratic right to bargain collectively.
The Minister of Education, Laurel Broten and the Liberal Party's Bill 115 have left teachers with no other alternative to our present situation.
OSSTF members have been lobbying MPPs and attempting to negotiate with our employer since April 2012. OSSTF has attempted every possible strategy to keep communication open, and find solutions through meaningful dialogue to help achieve financial savings that the government needed to help balance its books. OSSTF teachers have accepted a wage freeze. We offered a wage freeze in April.
Locally, OSSTF even managed to reach a tentative agreement with the employer only to have Minister Broten reject it and insist it be rewritten before she would accept it. Laughably, she insists in the media she has never interfered with negotiations. Our tentative deal met all financial targets imposed by Minister Broten, yet she still rejected it. Contrary to her statements in interviews, Laurel Broten and her government do not want dialogue. She does not want local negotiations . She only wants to keep her sweeping powers , as newly defined in Bill 115.
Bill 115 gives Ministe r Laurel Broten unpreceden ted powers that would make even Mike Harris blush. It allows the Minister to make decisions that are not subject to any public review by MPPs in the legislature.
It allows her to impose contracts on education workers, and to alter the Education Act according to her 'opinion.' Bill 115 allows the Minister to override the Ontario Labour Relations Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to Bill 115, any terms and conditions of contracts the Minister imposes on any educational worker cannot be challenged in the courts, or by arbitrators.
The Minister knows that it will take years to prove her wrong through the courts. In the meantime, the template has been set for the government to impose contracts on all of its employees and effectively bypass proper negotiations. If successful, Bill 115 provides the framework for governments and
businesses to strip collective bargaining rights to all 1.4 million unionized workers everywhere in this province, and across the country.
Teachers are easily vilified in the public. Do we honestly thin k that getting to a legal strike position and removing extra curricular will enamo ur us in the public eye?
No, we knew the hardship we would endure if we were finally forced into this situation. Why then, would teachers be willing to take such drastic actions? Why are all teachers in this province making the exceptionally difficult decision to stop offering their volunteer services?
Simply ask yourself this: if teachers and unions across Ontario have flat out stated they accept, and even offered, a wage freeze.. . how could we possibly find ourselves in this position? It is simply not true that we are in this position because the union bosses won't accept a wage freeze. We are not fighting a wage freeze - we are fighting for our democratic rights, the democratic rights of all workers in this province and the future of our education system in Ontario.
Janie Kelly
OSSTF District 14
President